everyone in this room could be dying
more than all of us already are

the lights are bright
the chairs are hard and too small
the staff smile and make lightweight small talk
about freshly washed, unruly hair
or mid-work-week reliefs

the patients talk small with them
smiles trained and stretched across
unrelenting pain and weariness

this place is a chapel
the religion, a sincretism of drugs and prayer
these are not elegant drugs
all sledgehammer and crumbling skyscraper

I want to kneel at all of their feet
these parishoners
and hold their hands tightly in mine
and ask them if they are going to die

ask them what they will do
if they live
ask them if the innermost want of their being
has been realized
or if it crouches snarling within them
daring them to delay any longer